Voice of the people (letter).

Monee A La Gurnee?

LIBERTYVILLE — The headline in the Metro Lake section of the Tribune on Nov. 29 ("Gurnee Mills-style development gets another tax break. . ." Metro) sums up the many problems of overdevelopment.

One of the big obstacles to good county, municipal and regional planning is our primitive practice of returning sales tax to the host village hall, a practice that encourages many bad developments, tax giveaways and official wrongdoing. A better alternative would be to return sales tax in a manner patterned after the collection and distribution of motor fuel tax, on a per capita basis.

The average profitable lifetime of most regional megamalls is 20 to 25 years. In their rush to get the development, Monee is giving back to the developers all kinds of sales tax breaks, property-tax concessions and removing all the economic incentives for the village.

Monee is lucky; it has a live preview of things to come in Gurnee. Monee is feeling the first wave of development. First come the shopping centers, then the housing to ensure success of the megamalls and, last, the inevitable need for new schools and roads.

Two years ago Gurnee was forced to pass $71 million in bonds for new schools, and the administrative costs will equal the building cost every five years. And more classrooms are needed.

If Monee is hell-bent on destroying its village, a la Gurnee, give the sales tax and property-tax concession dollars to the schools--they are going to need it.